Did he spot the fifteen missing venues that I and others have found so far, and feel let down, or the Oliver's Mount hillclimb and Porlock Hllclimb map mistakes, or the typos and the wrong captions on the photos?

If it is reprinted we will try and get them corrected and include an addendum.

Ho hum.

I would think there is a lot of information out there that has not been included. I think the further the venue was away from "daan saath" the less accurate it was. It was a massive undertaking and I don't know how the author did his research. I know there a some events/venues where I was Clerk of the Course where info is missing or not quite right. I've just dipped into it while on holiday for the counties I know so far. I have sympathy for the author as it must have been a massive task. So many motor clubs have died in the last 40 years or so and God knows what happened to all their records, minutes and magazines.

I've just received in the post my copy of "Tony Robinson", and immediately reduced its value by a tenner.....

It was packaged in Amazon's usual cardboard carton, but the book itself is also shrinkwrapped. Beware! Trying to uncover it with my partially arthritic hands I tore the dustwrapper. B*gger! I know we're not all OCD about such things, but it has really,really annoyed me.

Contact Amazon and either be honest and say what happened or say that it came with a damaged jacket. Ask them to send a replacement jacket and with luck they'll send you a replacement book - Then send me the damaged one!

Contact Amazon and either be honest and say what happened or say that it came with a damaged jacket. Ask them to send a replacement jacket and with luck they'll send you a replacement book - Then send me the damaged one!

I would think there is a lot of information out there that has not been included. I think the further the venue was away from "daan saath" the less accurate it was. It was a massive undertaking and I don't know how the author did his research. I know there a some events/venues where I was Clerk of the Course where info is missing or not quite right. I've just dipped into it while on holiday for the counties I know so far. I have sympathy for the author as it must have been a massive task. So many motor clubs have died in the last 40 years or so and God knows what happened to all their records, minutes and magazines.

I would be grateful for any information that can correct the entries, plus information on any venues that are missing. I did contact a lot of motor clubs and some (only some) were very helpful, while others I'm still waiting for a reply.

Please don't forget that when the project was begun I thought there were around three hundred sites - a gross under estimate and the projected number of words for the book was 200,000 so the number of words per entry had to be reduced (there were still under 300,000). This meant that entries had to be pruned and much of the information I had (and had written) was condensed right down. In addition almost all the funny stories went plus the car and driver profiles.

IF there can be a revised version in the future (please with an index this time) I will make as much use as possible of newly received information, fully acknowledged.

Not sure we should be giving Amazon the publicity but significant chunks of the Tony Robinson book can be previewed on the Amazon site. May be of interest to D Type and nicanary (one of the extracts covers travel with the Halford car around the time of the 57 German GP).

Read the first chapter last night before slumber - that alone was worth the purchase price. It details the rigmarole involved in getting the Halford 250F to the Caen GP. Splendid, just up my street.

(I've often wondered how these mechanics and goofers managed "sur le continong" with the lingo. My schoolboy French gets me nothing but stares and Gallic shrugs, and, not wanting to sound patronising, most of the 50s spanner-boys would probably not have been particularly well educated, and it's unlikely they spoke any foreign language at all, unless they picked up a bit serving His Majesty in the war. It must have made the job even harder - not like the modern globalisation of sport where English appears to be the accepted common denominator.)

Yep- seems to work with most of these johnny-foreigners. I still miss the old- style passports - they looked so impressive when waved in the face and accompanied by "make way, British subject, don't y'know".

I've often wondered how these mechanics and goofers managed "sur le continong" with the lingo. My schoolboy French gets me nothing but stares and Gallic shrugs, and, not wanting to sound patronising, most of the 50s spanner-boys would probably not have been particularly well educated, and it's unlikely they spoke any foreign language at all, unless they picked up a bit serving His Majesty in the war. It must have made the job even harder - not like the modern globalisation of sport where English appears to be the accepted common denominator.

A massive insult, though unintended I'm sure, to the inventive, versatile, self-sufficient, think-on-their-feet men who survived as racing mechanics in the 1950s, 60s and later. In common with many here, I was taught French at school, I was also taught Latin, but we'll try to ignore that. I left with a good GCE pass in the language, and was able to read Paris Soir with ease. What I couldn't do without a real struggle was communicate with the newspaper seller, or indeed most of his compatriots. Since those days, I've been to the country many times, have travelled extensively and done business with French people, and am at last reasonably competent in the language, similarly with German, but I learned both mainly from being there and conversing with native speakers. 1950s racing mechanics were every bit as capable of doing this as those with 'an education', possibly more so through having to survive in strange environments. I think it was a trade union leader who once said "Everyone is born with a hand of cards, all that education does is teach you how to play them", and I'm sure that no-one would suggest that race mechanics throughout the ages have been lacking in intelligence, even though many of them may not have had a lot of formal education. C'est vrai,n'est ce pas?

Point taken. and accepted. I find myself in the same boat as yourself - I have French and German A-levels, but they're worth diddly-squat when trying to converse with natives of those countries. Those mechs of old must have loved their job, though, because I don't think the wages would have been too enticing. For the love of the sport, as they say.

I received the Lotus 72 Haynes manual yesterday. I thumbed through it and it seems worth the money. The Haynes series reminds me of the short series that Ian Bamsey did a few years ago. I like the idea. Information on a particular car or other in a compact, economical format. I have the Red Bull book and I look forward to the Mclaren and GT40 books. Especially the GT40.

I'd like a bit of advice please, chaps. I've bought five 1970's Autcourses from my local secondhand book shop for £15 each, but the snag is that they've all got damp at some time and all smell musty. I've been airing them in the house which hasn't made a lot of difference, any ideas on how to reduce, if not get rid of the smell?

I'd like a bit of advice please, chaps. I've bought five 1970's Autcourses from my local secondhand book shop for £15 each, but the snag is that they've all got damp at some time and all smell musty. I've been airing them in the house which hasn't made a lot of difference, any ideas on how to reduce, if not get rid of the smell?

It really depends on where and how they got damp. Are we talking damp as in left in a room or garage? Or wet as in flooded?

I'd like a bit of advice please, chaps. I've bought five 1970's Autcourses from my local secondhand book shop for £15 each, but the snag is that they've all got damp at some time and all smell musty. I've been airing them in the house which hasn't made a lot of difference, any ideas on how to reduce, if not get rid of the smell?

£15 for a 1970's Autocourse? That was a good deal! I've just bought the 1973 edition for £120 on Ebay...

£15 for a 1970's Autocourse? That was a good deal! I've just bought the 1973 edition for £120 on Ebay...

I was really surprised to see a 80/81 in the local secondhand book shop window for £20 so bought it and asked if he had any others. He'd bought a collection so I bought 75/76 (in a Martini dustjacket), 77/78, 78/79, and 79/80 for £60 as I took four. He's still got 76/77, which I already had, and various other books such as Graham Hill's Life at the Limit, Graham, Emerson Fittipaldi's biography with Elizabeth Hayward, Driving Ambition by Alan Jones, Eoin Young's biography of James Hunt and the Photo Formula 1 book from Automobile Year 1950-1978

The earlier Autocourses were pretty musty though, he said that otherwise he'd be asking £30 each for them. I think he said he'd be asking a £5 for the other biographies and £20 for the Photo F1 book

Motor Racing - The Golden Age ed. John Tennant - very highly recommended collection of b/w photos. I'd previously bought my father the fascinating football volume in the same series so I knew the approach the series takes ... (there's also a cricket one which I suspect dad and I will end up buying copies of for each other ;))

The emphasis is on "unusual" shots rather than the same old cliched action shots we've all seen a million times before - I guess I've not seen 90%+ of the pics in this book. Repro standards are excellent and the large-format book is over 350 pages. A big, heavy, nicely-produced piece of work.

Subject matter - mostly 20s-30s, and 50s - with some forays through into the 60s and into the pioneering days of racing. Covers the whole spectrum of the sport, with some particularly stunning photos of record breakers and their vehicles. As well as the obvious stuff about important races, there are interesting shots of minor races, pit/paddock/workshop shots, spectators, drivers "off duty", "sideshow" events, and pretty much anything related to the sport. It's great "dip into" stuff, and (as Tennant observes in his intro) the key to it is looking at the little details as much as the overall "story" that the pics tell. The organisation is a bit chaotic, there's no obvious historic or thematic flow to the book, but that throws up some interesting clusters and juxtapositions.

Text is limited to a brief piece by Tennant and a couple of pages by JYS, then terse captions. But the pictures tend to tell their own stories brilliantly. A book you can spend hours browsing and I think you'll get something more out of it every time.

RRP 30 quid, Amazon are doing it for 21 (a bargain), a local bookshop had one copy with a slightly damaged DJ and bumped cover for 15 at which price it was an absolutely mandatory purchase! Definitely worthy of shelving alongside your Schlegelmilchs or Goddards or Alexanders.

Just picked up a copy of this fine book in the Oxfam shop in Knowle, and couldn't agree more with Pete.

Available at the Bourne BRM Day for £50 where I purchased my copy. It's a slightly unusual book, and will probably appeal only to the diehard BRM and ERA fanatic, the bulk of its content being copies of book, magazine and DVD covers and listing of all titles of which the author is aware, as well as copies of correspondence. He also includes models from his collection, badges and engine components.

I recieved a copy of this book by Allan Scott today from Chater's. I've so far only managed to give it a cursory look through, but the book appears to me to be of the highest quality and is the first of 4 proposed titles covering the TWR team taking the viewpoint from the engine department. The book covers the period from 1981 through to 1987 when TWR ran the Jaguar's in Group A and it follows a linear timeline. I imagine the other 3 books will cover other periods relating to what TWR competed in.

And the colour pictures look good, I can't say I've seen many (if any) of them before.

Just noticed a hardback book on Jacky Ickx is now available, http://www.uitgeveri...l.be/jacky-ickx. It's currently available from The Book Depository for £41.99 (or €45.00 from the publisher). I haven't seen or heard of this title previously, but it looks quite lavish from the pictures.

Perhaps others will soon comment on the book. My biased opinion is it's great, especially given the time frame for production.

Mark Godfrey

I'll back that. My copy arrived yesterday, and from my brief leafing through it I have to say it's well put together. Some of the black and white reproductions of photos are a little pale, but I enjoyed the color photo sections and am looking forward to reading it. Thanks.

Just picked up a copy of this fine book in the Oxfam shop in Knowle, and couldn't agree more with Pete.

It's always worth looking in charity shops as quite a few of this type of "Popular" book find their way onto the shelves. Some time when the thread's quiet and I'm feeling smug I'll list my charity shop, boot sale, and remaindered bargains.

It's always worth looking in charity shops as quite a few of this type of "Popular" book find their way onto the shelves. Some time when the thread's quiet I'm feeling smug I'll list my charity shop and remaindered bargains.

Quite true, but charity shops, secondhand bookshops generally in fact, are not as good a source of bargains as they once were. The reason of course is that ubiquitous blessing and curse the Internet. When they see something they think might be worth a few quid, or even a book they aren't sure about, sellers do exactly as most of us would, they check out AbeBooks to see what others are asking for the same work, and then set their prices accordingly. As these shops tend not to be staffed by book experts, items will often slip through whatever vetting system they use, but less often than they once did. There's one charity shop quite near where I live, and I've always found their book stocks to be better than most others, but I've often been surprised to see just how much they were asking for some books, though when I've remembered to check myself on Abe, it's clear that they've done exactly the same as I have, and priced accordingly. I suspect that their slogan is 'Never knowingly underpriced'.

Quite true, but charity shops, secondhand bookshops generally in fact, are not as good a source of bargains as they once were. The reason of course is that ubiquitous blessing and curse the Internet. When they see something they think might be worth a few quid, or even a book they aren't sure about, sellers do exactly as most of us would, they check out AbeBooks to see what others are asking for the same work, and then set their prices accordingly. As these shops tend not to be staffed by book experts, items will often slip through whatever vetting system they use, but less often than they once did. There's one charity shop quite near where I live, and I've always found their book stocks to be better than most others, but I've often been surprised to see just how much they were asking for some books, though when I've remembered to check myself on Abe, it's clear that they've done exactly the same as I have, and priced accordingly. I suspect that their slogan is 'Never knowingly underpriced'.

Whilst we can all regret the reduced number of unexpected bargains of all sorts in charity shops, it behoves them to make as much as they can from the stuff that's donated by whatever means they can - and it's not unknown for the local fine art auction house to be called into the equation. I've even bought items on eBay from charity shops!

You're far more likely to find bargains in small local charity shops than in places like Oxfam or British Heart Foundation, since the big national charities now have sophisticated operations to identify the more "collectable" and dispose of it by the most profitable means. Donations are often sent to a central hub where they are assessed, valued and redistributed - so the box of books you take into (for example) your local Oxfam will usually end up in a big warehouse in Huddersfield:

Caveat emptor!

On the upside, they are at least doing the world a service by pulping millions of unwanted books by Jeremy Clarkson and Dan Brown!

New to me a sequence from Le Mans scrutineering: testing the turning circle of a P4 on the start/finish straight. After the scrutineering the car got a round (fat) rubber stamp of the ACO on the front left fender...NEVER seen this procedure before...

New to me a sequence from Le Mans scrutineering: testing the turning circle of a P4 on the start/finish straight. After the scrutineering the car got a round (fat) rubber stamp of the ACO on the front left fender...NEVER seen this procedure before...